NOTE: THE DEFINING
GENERATION is a project begun by Doug and Pam Sterner in 2002 and
completed in 2006. Initially is was prepared for publication as a book,
however with their changing focus to development of a database of military
awards, was postponed indefinitely so they could concentrate on that
larger, more important work. The stories found herein however, need to be
shared, and they have consented to make this compilation available in this
format. While each story can stand alone, it is recommended that for
continuity, readers will be best served by reading the chapters
sequentially from first to last.

The Defining
Generation

-

Defining Dissent

The Pen and the Sword

"Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the government for a redress of grievances." Those are the words
of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the first of
ten such basic principles enumerated in the Bill of Rights that Americans
hold dear. Perhaps more than any other fundamental right of the citizen,
the right of free speech is prized above all others. We like to think that
it is a historically American principle…and it has been…except when
free speech becomes the voice of dissent. During the 1960s the voice of
dissent became the rumbling of a new American Revolution.

In our diverse nation
it is expected that opinions will vary widely, and they do. Indeed
everyone is "entitled to their opinion," or so we would like to
think. The fact is, all too often a differing opinion is fine if one keeps
it to themselves. When such opinions become manifested in the public
arena, and especially that opinion become the voice of dissention, even in
the
United States
the results can be damaging. Unlike opinions which are expected to be
private and innocuous, dissention is often the unified voice of a group
with an opinion at odds with either an official policy or a majority
opinion.

It was in fact, the
voice of dissention that led 13 American colonies to declare themselves
free from British rule in 1776. One of the first high profile acts of
dissention to manifest itself in civil disobedience was the so-called
Boston Tea Party of
December 16, 1773
. In reaction to such civil disobedience King George began instituting
various acts to quell the rise of public activism by monitoring voices of
opposition, suspending due process of law, and other activities that came
to be known as the Intolerable Acts. While more than two centuries later
and in light of putting a positive "spin" on the American
Revolution we like to think of these Acts as the repressive edicts of a
tyrant, from a more aesthetic position they could be seen as a leader's
actions to quell rebellion and protect the public. While that certainly
was NOT the case in 1776, it would become the excuse for American
Presidents in the two centuries that followed to establish equally
intolerable acts of infringement on freedom of speech in the name of
security.

Never in history has
our nation had a popular war, save perhaps the Spanish-American war of
1898 that was described as a "Splendid Little War" though it
too, had its peace protesters. Few events in our history have evoked more
dissention than those involving armed conflict, perhaps because it is at
once both very personal and tragically deadly. The successful prosecution
of any war demands a consensus of the American public, which is why the
age old mantra is that "You don't just send and Army to war, you take
a country to war."

The who voiced
dissention against the American Revolution are conveniently remembered as
"Loyalists" or "Tories." Their unfortunate lot must be
remembered in context for, in 1776 the Loyalists, while comprising a
minority of about 20% of the population in the 13 Colonies, were
nevertheless American citizens in those colonies. The Patriots were, in
fact, rebels. One such Loyalist, Samuel Seabury an Anglican clergyman of
Connecticut
explained the reason for his dissent by stating: "If I must be
enslaved let it be by a King at least, and not by a parcel of upstart
lawless Committeemen. If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the
jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin." Such was
his personal opinion of the Founding Fathers.

Perhaps the only thing
that marked the early revolutionaries as heroes rather than as upstart
rebels was the fact that they won. Of course in those days of war the
voice of dissention, out of a sheer sense of survival, learned to muffle
itself within fiercely patriotic cities.

Theoretically the right
of dissent and the freedom to unite in opposition to either the policy of
government or prevailing popular opinion was made abundantly possible when
the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Within seven years however the
principles of the First Amendment would be put to the test and…at least
for a time, would become victim to the very Executive Branch that was
sworn to uphold it.

The first major
external crisis to face our young nation came in the late 1790s.While Americans were struggling to establish and refine their
definition of a democratic government,
France
and
England
were at war with each other.By
1797 French privateers, reacting to their own fears that the
United States
leaned more towards
England
in the conflict, seized more than 300 American vessels on the high seas.When American emissaries to
France
sought a treaty to end such actions
France
demanded a 10 million dollar loan, among other things.As soon news of French aggression and extortion reached the
American public, there was immediate outrage.

The illegal actions of
the French and their insolent demands spurred not only fear in
America
but calls for immediate action by the President and the Congress.The hysteria, subsequently called Francophobia,
failed to persuade President John Adams to declare war, though in the
two-year undeclared war that followed the U.S. Navy seized 84 French
ships.To sate the fears and
outcry of the public over the French threat, President Adams and the
Congress passed four new laws in the name of national security.

The Alien
and Sedition Acts were four pieces of legislation designed to stop any
dissent against the government.The
first three: The Naturalization Act, The Alien Friends Act, and the Alien
Enemies Act, were designed to protect American interests from subversive
actions by foreign (more specifically, but not identified, French)
immigrants, living in the
United States
. Of course at that time virtually ALL voting American citizens in 1798
were immigrants, Native Americans (as well as other ethnic minorities)
were not allowed to vote. The latter of the three acts gave the President
the authority to arrest and deport, without cause, any citizen of a
foreign country during time of war.

These three Alien Acts
were seen as necessary to national security by the Federalist-controlled
Congress, but were decried by the anti-Federalists.Despite the outcry and opposition of civil libertarians, including
Thomas Jefferson who had penned the Declaration of Independence, in 1798
the Alien Acts were followed by the Sedition Act.Where the first three limited the rights of aliens during this time
of crisis, the Sedition Act made possible a gross violation of the
American citizens’ Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and
freedom of the press.

Through
the Sedition Act an American citizen could be fined or imprisoned for
obstructing the implementation of federal law or for publishing malicious
or false writings against Congress, the president or the government.Among the editors and writers arrested through this Act was
Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin.Congressman Matthew Lyon was arrested for publishing a letter to
the editor of his
Vermont
paper, the Fair Haven Gazette.That letter attacked President Adams by saying he had a
“continued grasp for power….an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp,
foolish adulation, and selfish avarice.”These remarks garnered him a sentence of four months in jail and a
fine of one thousand dollars.Editor
Anthony Haswell was arrested for printing an advertisement to raise money
for
Lyon
’s fine.He was charged with
“abetting a criminal.”
Lyon
was jailed in October yet was reelected to the House in December.He was freed in February after receiving enough money to pay his
fine. So much for the 7-year-old First Amendment and the right of free
speech.

Ultimately, no
immigrants were charged under the Alien Acts.The Sedition Act, on the other hand, led to the imprisonment of
some two-dozen American citizens.All
American citizens who were arrested were members of the press whose only
crime had been to criticize the abridgment of civil liberty under the acts
or the unprecedented authority over the citizenry exercised by President
Adams.Thomas Jefferson and
James Madison believed that “the powers claimed under these acts by
President Adams resembled those of a monarch.”
Madison
criticized it as an affront to the “right of freely examining public
characters and measures, and of free communication among the people."
Madison
’s Virginia Resolution and
Jefferson
’s Kentucky Resolution, written in opposition to these acts, pitted two
states against the Federal Government.

The issues of the right
of free speech and freedom of the press were never addressed by the
Supreme Court in light of the Alien and Sedition Acts; such actions would
not be undertaken by the judiciary for nearly two centuries.Rather, the debate over the issue of abridgments of these rights in
the name of security was settled in the election of 1800 when Thomas
Jefferson defeated John Adams.In
his inaugural address, the new president confirmed the right of American
citizens “to think freely and to speak and write what they think."
Jefferson
also subsequently pardoned all those who had been previously charged under
the Sedition Act and their fines were repaid by Congress.

Sixty years later
Abraham Lincoln was elected during a time when the country was faced with
divided loyalties, “fluid military and political boundaries and easy
opportunities for espionage and sabotage,” as well as violent protests.President Lincoln had to somehow find a way to bring about law and
order in the face of potential chaos, and to unify the nation.

To make matters worse,
after the attack on
Fort
Sumter
on
April 14, 1861
, while the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers marched toward the Capitol
through
Baltimore
, they were attacked by insurgent Confederate soldiers.President Lincoln realized he had to take immediate action to
prevent additional Confederate troops from entering the city.The mayor of
Baltimore
ordered the destruction of all railroad bridges that connected
Baltimore
to the North, thus preventing access to the city by Confederate soldiers.

In the Spring of 1861,
President Lincoln responded to the threat of safety against his citizens,
in particular the people living in
Maryland
.
Lincoln
decided that drastic measures were needed to deal with the crisis at hand.He believed that as the chief executive he must exercise carte
blanche when it came to arresting espionage suspects and others who were
believed to be a threat to national security.In
Lincoln
’s mind one of the easiest ways to do this was to suspend the writ of
habeas corpus. Right or wrong, it was an action that mirrored one of the
Intolerable Acts of King George that had lead to revolution nearly a
century earlier.

A court-ordered writ of
habeas corpus demands a court hearing in order to determine if a person
held in custody is being lawfully detained. It is a fundamental right of
all free people--the right to due process under law.By suspending the writ of habeas corpus
Lincoln
was able to arrest people whom he perceived to be a threat to national
security, without having to have enough evidence to prove to a court that
they were in fact a threat warranting arrest and imprisonment.

Article I, Section 9 of
the U.S. Constitution says, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus
shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the
public safety may require it.”During
the Civil War Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that only Congress had
the authority to suspend habeas corpus, but President Lincoln adamantly
claimed that he was the one who had the authority to do so.Since Congress would not be in session until June, several months
distant,
Lincoln
immediately suspended the writ of habeas corpus without their consent and
then declared marital law in
Maryland
on April 27.

At first,
Lincoln
’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus only applied to
Maryland
.Because this executive
action set a precedent that the President did indeed have the authority to
do this, on
September 24, 1862
,
Lincoln
moved one step further and suspended the writ of habeas corpus everywhere
in the
United States
.He used this expansion to
not only arrest those suspected of espionage, but to also arrest,
imprison, and silence anyone who resisted the draft, or who was “guilty
of any disloyal practice.”It
was under this ambiguous charge that newspaper editors in the North,
opposing political leaders, and virtually anyone else who spoke against
the
Union
or the war effort could be arrested.So
much for Freedom of the Press! Once these people were arrested,
Lincoln
claimed that they were subject to martial law, allowing them to be tried
and punished by military courts.This
action removed the accused from the protection of the Constitution. So
much for Due Process of Law!

Lincoln
’s order to suspend habeas corpus was historic in light of the U.S.
Constitution, and set a precedent that enabled further actions by himself,
as well as any future president.It
resulted in an Act passed by Congress in March 1863 which affirmed once
and for all that the President did indeed have the power to suspend habeas
corpus if and when national security required such action.

Not all Northerners
agreed with
Lincoln
’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and/or other policies related to
slavery, the war, the draft, or the general operation of his war-time
administration.These northern
dissenters became known as copperheads,
referring to the poisonous copperhead snake.Clement Vallandigham, a Congressman and leader of the Democrats in
Congress, called constantly for a negotiated end to the Civil war and
reunion with the South.Despite
losing his Congressional seat in the election of 1862, he continued to
speak as a former legislator and high-profile political leader.His speeches railed against
Lincoln
’s policies during the present crisis and war.

General Ambrose
Burnside, the commander of the military district that included
Ohio
, decided to deal with the copperheads once and for all.He issued General Order No. 38 which stated, “The habit of
declaring sympathies for the enemy will no longer be tolerated in this
department.Persons committing
such offenses will be at once arrested.”General Burnside based his authority to issue this order on
Lincoln
’s proclamation of suspending the writ of habeas corpus.

Former Congressman
Clement Vallandigham spoke at an Ohio Democratic Party rally on
May 1, 1863
.Even though he was aware
that General Burnside’s men were in the audience, Vallandigham spoke
against the General and against President Lincoln’s handling of the
current crisis, the war between the states.Former Congressman Vallandigham challenged Burnside’s General
Order No. 38 by saying that his right to speak was based on “General
Order, No. 1, the Constitution of the
United States
."Vallandigham
challenged
Lincoln
’s authority by speaking against the war and against the draft.

In the wee hours of a
morning shortly thereafter, while everyone in the Vallandigham family
slept, soldiers broke down the door to the house, rushed upstairs, and
broke two bedroom doors in their search for the rebellious leader.Under a cloak of absolute secrecy and the dark of night they
arrested him and transported him aboard a special train to another city.The authorities there locked Vallandigham up in a military
barracks.The arrested former
Congressman was not allowed to see a judge nor was he even formally
charged with a crime.Vallandigham
did subsequently learn what the charges against him were. His crime was:

“publicly expressing
in violation of General Order, No. 38….sympathies for those in arms
against the Government of the United States, declaring disloyal sentiments
and opinions with the object and purpose of weakening the power of the
Government in its effort to suppress the unlawful rebellion."

Even after his arrest, Vallandigham continued
to argue that the government was violating the Constitution and had no
legal right to imprison or try him.General
Burnside disagreed and found him guilty.He wanted to have the former congressman put in prison for the rest
of the war.
Lincoln
, trying to make a bad situation go away, ordered that Vallandigham be
banished to the Confederacy.The
president then tried to mend fences with Democratic Party leaders by
explaining that regular civilian courts were not adequate to deal with
such problems during a rebellion.He
said that anyone opposing the government’s cause endangered “the
public safety,” therefore the solution was to suspend the writ and lock
up the troublemakers until the end of the war.

Vallandigham’s
friends, believing that the Judiciary branch would overturn and rectify
the unconstitutional actions of the President, went to the U.S. Supreme
Court asking the justices to hear the case.To their dismay the Supreme Court ruled on
February 15, 1864
, that it would not hear the case because it did not have the authority to
review any proceedings of a martial law court. After the Civil War, in
1866, the Supreme Court finally stepped up to the plate and restored
habeas corpus.They further
ruled that it was illegal for military trials to be held in areas where
civil courts were capable of ruling on the matter at hand.

The first major
international conflict involving
America
was World War I.In 1917, as
in 1798, foreign immigrants living in
America
were looked upon with fear and suspicion.This placed a lot of Americans at risk of losing their
Constitutionally-guaranteed civil liberties since approximately one third
of all Americans were first or second-generation immigrants.Because the
United States
was at war with the nation of
Germany
, German immigrants and Americans with German sounding names were
automatically suspected of being disloyal.

To fight that war, when
at last war was declared on
April 6, 1917
, the Selective Service Act was passed on May 8.The Act dealt with the problem posed by low voluntary enlistment of
males in the
U.S.
military.At first only men
between the ages of 21 and 31 were ordered to military duty, but the Act
was eventually expanded to include all male citizens between the ages of
18 through 45.

To deal with potential
threats at home once the
United States
declared war on
Germany
, the Espionage Act was passed by Congress in 1918, effectively repressing
American civil liberties to a greater degree than any previous Act in
history.Under this Act
individuals (American citizens included) could be fined “up to $10,000
and imprisoned for 20 years for…interfering with the draft, encouraging
disloyalty or even using….abusive language about the (American) form of
government."The Act
further outlawed any publication which urged “treason, insurrection, or
forcible resistance to any law” from being mailed.

One of President
Wilson’s purposes under this Act was to permanently silence German
newspapers. Ultimately this prohibition spilled over to control the
content of American newspapers as well.As had happened in 1798 and during the Civil War, once again
freedom of the press was effectively outlawed in the
United States of America
.Forty-four
U.S.
newspapers lost their mailing privileges while 30 others escaped that fate
only by agreeing not to write anything about the war.

Under the Espionage Act
all males older than 14 who were still “natives, citizens, denizens, or
subjects” of the German Empire were deemed alien enemies.Soon this term was expanded to apply to any foreign resident who
dared to speak against the government, the war, or the draft; such
violators were deemed undesirable by the government.The suspicion of German-Americans, who had immigrated, grown up as
Americans, and raised American families, was so intense that many of them
chose to change their names.People
with the last name of Mueller became Miller; American citizens with the
surname of Schmidt became Smith.German-named
American cities and towns followed suit;
Berlin
,
Iowa
, became
Lincoln
,
Iowa
.Performances by Schubert and
Bach were banned in
America
during this time.The trend
even extended to popular food dishes; sauerkraut became known as
“liberty cabbage.”

On
July 2, 1918
, Congress voted to repeal the charter of the National German-American
Alliance.This organization,
created in 1900, included representatives from ten states and sought to
promote unity with the German people and to introduce Americans to the
German culture.The only
“crime” the organization and its
two to three
million members had committed was to call for American neutrality in the
war.

Former Congressman
Victor Berger, reformer Kate O’Hare, and anarchist Emma Goldman were
among the more than 2,000 people who were jailed for hindering the draft.Eugene Debs was sentenced to ten years for verbally attacking the
Espionage Act and for defending Kate O’Hare in a speech he gave in
Ohio
.Jacob Schwartz was a member
of a group of Jewish anarchists who was arrested for publishing articles
against American intervention in
Russia
after the Bolshevik government signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.Police beat Schwartz so badly that he died soon after his arrest.His right to freedom of speech had been taken away forever.

Courts had no sympathy
for immigrants or American citizens prosecuted under the Espionage Act.One judge addressed a jury in one of these prosecutions saying that
quoting rights guaranteed by the First Amendment is no defense “where
the honor and safety of the Nation is involved." John Dewey, a John
Hopkins graduate and philosopher, responded, “What shall it profit us to
defeat the Prussians if we prussianize our own selves?"The editor of a banned newspaper, Masses,
said, “They give you 90 days for quoting the Declaration of
Independence, six months for quoting the Bible, and pretty soon somebody
is going to get a life sentence for quoting Woodrow Wilson in the wrong
context."

Immediately prior to
the events at
Pearl Harbor
that forced our nation into a world war the American public viewed the
conflict in
Europe
and human rights violations perpetrated by the Japanese in
Asia
with a strongly isolationistic anti-war mood. In 1939, nine of every ten
Americans opposed
United States
involvement and of the 10% who believed we should take sides in the war,
many believed we should unite with
Germany
. It was not so much a pro-Nazi attitude as it was an act of
self-preservation…
Germany
looked invincible and American's were frightened.

During the period the
anti-war voice of dissent became united in a powerful and influential
manner never before seen in
America
. Among the leading anti-war organizations was the America First
Committee. The group believed exactly what their name indicates, that
America
came FIRST and staying out of the brewing world war was in
America
's best interests. This voice of opposition numbered nearly 1 million
members with some 650 chapters.

The most high-profile
leader of America First was the dashing hero of The
Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh. Other prominent members and
supporters however included World War I Ace
of Aces Eddie Rickenbacker, Henry Ford, novelist Sinclair Lewis (whose
only son was subsequently killed in World War II), Walt Disney, and even
two U.S. Senators: Burton K. Wheeler, Senator Gerald P. Nye. Together they
stood in opposition to President Franklin's official stance that moved us
ever closer to war. As the organization's spokesman Charles Lindbergh
perhaps paid the highest price for his dissent; President Roosevelt even
tried to revoke his Medal of Honor. His name and reputation remains
tarnished to this day by the slanted and often outright lies used by the
Administration to discredit him.

The pre-war, anti-war
movement became moot on
December 7, 1941
. Such men as Lindbergh and Rickenbacker immediately volunteered for
military service, realizing that once
America
had been attacked they had an obligation to defend their country. In
retribution for his earlier anti-war stance, FDR essentially
"black-balled" Lindbergh, though three years into the war in one
of those little known facts of history, the Lone
Eagle actually flew combat as a civilian advisor in the Pacific and
shot down one Japanese Zero.

The dastardly nature of
the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor
demanded an immediate and forceful response. In the wake of that tragedy
Americans united to rally around the war effort. In contrast however to
what is commonly believed, as the war stretched into its first year and
then a second, and with Gold Stars denoting a killed son or daughter
appearing in the living room windows of more and more homes across
America
, many people began to rethink the war itself. By 1943 many at home had
wearied with the war in the Pacific and though privately that it would be
best to sue for peace with
Japan
, giving up to them control of faraway
Asia
and distant
Pacific
Islands
. But such dissent remained largely, and fortunately quiet.

When American Marines conducted
their first major assault (after
Guadalcanal
) against 4,800 Japanese, well-entrenched at
Tarawa
, it posed potential for a real backlash against the war.It was an incredible victory at a VERY HIGH COST:3,300 American casualties including 900 dead in just three days.Military war planners back home feared photos of the heavy
casualties sustained by the Marines would extinguish the fire in the belly
of the American public and force an outcry against further such assaults
in the Pacific.News reports
of the battle might suddenly bring the reality of war home to a public
that could mentally swap the horror of
Pearl Harbor
for this new understanding that victory, no matter how glorious, is not
earned without great sacrifice and bloodshed. Unlike the reporters of
another war just a few years later, news men covering the battle at Tarawa
voluntarily reported in only vague terms the heavy American losses, and
refrained from publishing inflammatory photographs. The Greatest
Generation held together, in no small part thanks to a pliable and
cooperative media and emotionally-charged
Hollywood
movies, and saved our world.

Perhaps in our nation's
history, never have the rights to free speech, peaceable assembly, and
public (or even private) dissent become more tenuous that in the 1950s.
The McCarthy hearings that were held as we entered a Cold War against
Communism and Socialist ideology smothered free speech for all but the
most daring or most indiscreet Americans in opposition to the majority
belief…and fear. It pitted neighbor against neighbor and was satirized
in a line of a popular ditty of the time, "If your mommie is a Commie
then you've gotta turn her in." Only ten years later a rebellious new
generation came of age, youth who were indeed either daring or
indiscreet…or perhaps both. The American right of dissent would be
forever changed. Opinions vary as to whether or not this was a good thing.

The purpose of this
section is NOT to argue the merit or fallacy, rightness or wrongness of
either the Vietnam War or the anti-war protest. What is important to
realize from the period is how in an unprecedented way, the voice of
dissent and the collective unity of a large segment of American society in
opposition to the official policy, impacted the political process by
American citizens exercising the right of free speech and freedom of
assembly. It erupted into a civil war, not for a specific cause as was the
earlier American Civil War, but for the right to be heard and heeded.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
The authors extend our thanks to the following who granted personal
interviews for this work: Roger Donlon (MOH), Robin Moore,
Don Bendell, Jimmy Stanford, Vince Yrineo, Sammy L. Davis (MOH),
Linda Alvarado, Karen Offutt, Lieutenant General Carol Mutter, Sir
Edward Artis, General Colin L. Powell, Katharine Houghton, Adrian
Cronauer, Jan Scruggs, Delbert Schmeling, and Peter Lemon (MOH).Our thanks to the staff of the following who either wrote or
allowed reprint of their own works for this book: Dr.
Marguerite Guzman Bouvard, Don Bendell, Congressman Sam Farr,
Congressman Thomas Petri, Congressman Mike Honda, Congressman Jim
Walsh, Governor Jim Doyle, and Scott Baron.Our special thanks also to the staff of the following who provided
information and fact-checked the chapters related to their
subject: Staff of Senator John Kerry, Staff of (then) Senator
Hillary Clinton, Staff of Senator Jim Webb
A SPECIAL THANKS also to Dr. Marguerite Guzman Bouvard for his
assistance in writing and editing the entire section on the Role of
the Sexes.